• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.38A no.8
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• pp.669-679
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• 2013

When an image is converted from HDR (high dynamic range) to LDR (low dynamic range), a tone mapping process is the essential component. Many TMOs (tone mapping operators) have been motivated by human vision which has lower physical luminance range than that in real scene. The representative of human vision properties which motivate TMOs is the local adaptation. However, TMOs are ultimately compressing image information such as contrast, saturation, etc. and the compression causes defects in image quality. In this paper, in order to compensate the degradation of the image which is caused by TMOs, the visual acuity-based edge stop function is proposed for applying the property of human vision to base-detail separation. In addition, using CSF (contrast sensitivity function) which represents the relationship among spatial frequency, contrast sensitivity, and luminance, the sharpness filter is designed and adaptively applied to the detail layer in regard to surround luminance.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.310-315
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• 2004

Image taken in the night can be low-contrast images because of poor environment and image transmission. We propose an algorithm that improves the acquired low-contrast image. MPEG-2 separates chrominance and illuminance, and compresses respectively because human vision is more sensitive to luminance. We extracted illumination and used K-means algorithm to find a proper crossover point automatically. We used K-means algorithm in the viewpoint that the problem of crossover point selection can be considered as the two-category classification problem. We divided an image into two subimages using the crossover point, and applied the histogram equalization method respectively. We used the index of fuzziness to evaluate the degree of improvement. We compare the results of the proposed method with those of other methods.

• Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.108-115
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• 2023

BACKGROUND: Minimizing contrast dose and radiation exposure while maintaining image quality during computed tomography angiography (CTA) for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is desirable, but not well established. This systematic review compares image quality for low contrast and low kV CTA versus conventional CTA in patients with aortic stenosis undergoing TAVR planning. METHODS: We performed a systematic literature review to identify clinical studies comparing imaging strategies for patients with aortic stenosis undergoing TAVR planning. The primary outcomes of image quality as assessed by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were reported as random effects mean difference with 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: We included 6 studies reporting on 353 patients. There was no difference in cardiac SNR (mean difference, -1.42; 95% CI, -5.71 to 2.88; p = 0.52), cardiac CNR (mean difference, -3.83; 95% CI, -9.98 to 2.32; p = 0.22), aortic SNR (mean difference, -0.23; 95% CI, -7.83 to 7.37; p = 0.95), aortic CNR (mean difference, -3.95; 95% CI, -12.03 to 4.13; p = 0.34), and ileofemoral SNR (mean difference, -6.09; 95% CI, -13.80 to 1.62; p = 0.12) between the low dose and conventional protocols. There was a difference in ileofemoral CNR between the low dose and conventional protocols with a mean difference of -9.26 (95% CI, -15.06 to -3.46; p = 0.002). Overall, subjective image quality was similar between the 2 protocols. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review suggests that low contrast and low kV CTA for TAVR planning provides similar image quality to conventional CTA.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Broadcast Engineers Conference
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• 2013.06a
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• pp.322-324
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• 2013

Haze is an extreme reason of the reduction of contrast when capturing image in the outdoor. Recently, there are several single image dehazing techniques, but they are not robust in dynamic variations of natural environment caused by the thickness, coverage of haze and appearance of sunlight. In this paper, we propose an effective and robust method to enhance luminance for image dehazing depending on histogram analysis. Compare with conventional methods, our proposal have better performance in term of contrast, and computation time.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.521-524
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• 1999

In spite of advances in image resolution and film contrast, check screen/film mammography remains one of diagnostic imaging modality where the image interpretation is very difficult. For the enhancement of film mammography, in this paper, dyadic wavelet transform is introduced. An unsharp masking technique is proposed and performed in wavelet domain. In addition, simple nonlinear enhancement and a denosing stage that preserves edges using wavelet shrinkage are computed into this technique. In this paper. we propose a new method for the gain setting of nonlinear enhancement and show result and comparison.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Broadcast Engineers Conference
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• 2012.07a
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• pp.16-18
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• 2012

Haze is an extreme reason of the reduction of contrast when capturing image in the outdoor. Recently, there are several single image dehazing techniques, but they are not robust in dynamic variations of natural environment caused by the thickness, coverage of haze and appearance of sunlight. In this paper, we propose an effective and robust method to enhance luminance for image dehazing depending on histogram analysis. Compare with conventional methods, our proposal have better performance in term of contrast, and computation time.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.1681-1685
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• 2014

The visual quality of medical image is an important factor for diagnosis accuracy. Therefore, the methods to improve the quality of medical image have studied. Among them, frequency domain filter is very powerful method to impove the visual quality of image. In this paper, the X-ray medical image using optimized high-pass filter was improved edges. The result image was improved edge and contrast of flat area using optimized high frequency emphasis filter. At last, the result image is to minimize the noise using the minimum mean square error(MMSE) filter. As a result, the proposed method has enhanced contrast and edge of the image in the contrast of existing filters, with the noise canceling effect.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.361-362
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• 2007

We propose a contrast-controlled feature detection approach for steel radiograph image. X-ray images are low contrast, dark and high noise image. So, It is not simple to detect defects directly in automated radiography inspection system. Contrast enhancement, histogram equalization and median filter are the most frequently used techniques to enhance the X-ray images. In this paper, the adaptive control method based on contrast limited histogram equalization is compared with several histogram techniques. Through comparative analysis, CLAHE(contrast controlled adaptive histogram equalization) can enhance detection of defects better.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.2 s.314
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• pp.126-136
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• 2007

This paper presents an enhanced algorithm for compensating the visual quality in back-light image. Current cameras do not represent all details of scene into human's eye. Saturation and underexposure are common problems in back-light image. Retinex algorithm, derived from Land's theory on human visual perception is known to be effective in enhancing the contrast. However, its weaknesses are long processing time and low contrast of bright area in back-light scene because of compensating the details of dark area. In this paper, K-Retinex algorithm is proposed to reduce the processing time and enhance the contrast in both dark and bright area. To show the superiority of proposed algorithm, we compare the processing time, local standard deviation and contrast per pixel of each area above.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.6-11
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• 2012

Digital mammogram is effective for detecting the micro-calcification that is early symptom of breast cancer. In the digital mammogram, many image processing techniques have been studied for accurate diagnosis and efficient treatment of micro-calcification lesion. The wavelet based multi-scale method was mainly used to enhance the image contrast. This paper presents an advanced mammography enhancement method which is based both on the brightness and the contrast enhancement in the wavelet domain. The proposed method normalizes a dynamic range using histogram of the image. The brightness is enhanced by modifying coefficients of low frequency components, and the contrast is enhanced by coefficients of high frequency component based on the multi-scale contrast measure. The experiment results show that the proposed method yields better performance of the image enhancement over the existing methods.